The difficulty in writing anything about Venice, even just writing for myself, is that it has all been done before. Or as Mary McCarthy put it, "There is nothing to say about Venice that has not been said before (including this sentence)" or something just like that. After reading that (and some Henry James--I recommend The Aspern Papers which I am enjoying immensely), I was rendered temporarily mute on the subject of my impressions and experiences. Someone, somewhere has experienced it, said it, wrote it and everything I have to contribute is beside the point. And what to say, after all? Venice is lovely, yes. It is alternately and simultaneously thrilling, charming, picturesque, mysterious, elegant, quaint, decaying (but in such a charming manner, or in such as way as to lend an air of mystery). ... read more

Today--lots of things going on in Venice, but we couldn't tear ourselves away from the living room windows. While a number of people--including Ari, Gabriel and Dean--were sitting in the living room looking over the Grand Canal, police boats pulled up right across the canal and started pulling up something from the water. There was, in Ari's words, a "log type thing, with a furry top" in the canal. The police turned their boats away from us and heaved it out of the water and covered it with a curtain, taking it to land opposite Casa Artom. Numerous fire and police boats showed up and circled the area, putting up another curtain around the object. Our suspicions were that the brown, furry mass we saw was, in fact, a human head, bobbing out of the ... read more

Since I'm here in Venice for nearly four months "homeschooling" my kids, I've been scouring websites, using search terms like "Venice with kids" and "children in Venice" and they all say pretty much the same thing: go to Piazza San Marco and have your kids feed the pigeons. That didn't interest me. How many minutes was that good for? Besides, I have some partially formulated ideas about birds carrying disease and had just heard a story (from a reputable source) about a Chinese girl cooking and eating a pigeon from San Marco and falling seriously ill. I had also just found out that feeding the pigeons was illegal in Venice--something about protecting the monuments from bird poop (and tourists?). My fears about disease were then compounded by visions of my children (and me) being scolded, ... read more